FERRARI, (L t'DENZIO (1471-1546). An 'Ital ian painter of the Lombard-Nilattese school. Ile was horn at Valduggia. in Piedmont. We know little of his life, which was paved mostly at Vercelli. Varallo. and :Milan. where he took up his residence in 1536, and died on January 31, 1516. It is generally supposed that his first teacher was Cirolamo Giovenone, at Ver celli: but :tlorelli has shown that the latter was several years his junior. and that his master at Vercelli was Maerino lfe is also reput ed to have studied under Leonardo. l'erngino. and Raphael. because of the influence of these masters main his work. Ile indeed studied at Milan, but it must have been under Luini and Bra In antino, pupils of Leonardo, and it is not likely that he ever erossed the Apen nines. Whatever he adopted from these masters he thoroughly assimilated, adding to it an ener getic naturalism of his own. In his earlier period he painted in the manner of the Lombard school, but toward the end of his life he adopted the more Titanic forms then in vogue. Ilis works always display intense dramatic action, although the composition is often overcrowded. The coloring is bright, sometimes even gaudy, lint harmonious, in his frescoes. Ile excels espe cially in heads and draperies. His works are of unequal merit, but he is in many respects the most powerful master of the Milan school.
Among Ferrari's earlier works are a triptych representing a "Holy Family with Saints" (1511), for the Church of Santa Maria at Arono, and altarpiece for the Church of Canob bio and for San Gaudenzio at Novara (1514-15). He afterwards settled at Varallo, where lie exe cuted a number of his most important works. In 1513 he had finished in the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie twenty frescoes of the "Life of Ch•ist"—a wonderfully dramatic series in well-arranged, though sometimes crowded, groups.
In the Chapel of Santa Margherita, in the same church, he painted two frescoes of the "Life of Christ" (finished in 1515), and for San Gnu denzio a fine altarpiece, the "Marriage of Saint Catherine"—perhaps the best of his earlier work. Ile decorated with frescoes the walls of three of the 'stations' or chapels of the Sacred Moun tain of Varallo, and painted the chief pictures in three others. Of these paintings, his great "Crucifixion," in the thirty-eighth chapel, is the masterpiece. The groups in this painting, in their symmetrical arrangement, and the dignified heads and harmonious colors, challenge compari son with Raphael himself, according to Morelli. In 1532-35 Ferrari decorated the transept of San Cristoforo, Vercelli. with frescoes of the "Life of the Virgin," and in 1535 the cupola of the Church of Saranno with a circle of "Singing Angels"—one of the finest existing specimens of such work. In 1542 he painted his last fresco, the "Scourging of Christ." in Santa Maria delle Grazie. Milan—a picture of grandiose effect. His "Martyrdom of Saint Catherine." the best known of his pictures (Brera, Milan), is of the same character. Few of his works exist outside of Lombardy. In the Louvre there is an excellent "Saint Paul," in the Berlin Museum an "An nunciation," and in the Historical Society of New York "Saint George and Saint Anthony of Padua." Consult: Bordiga, Katizie intorno alle opere di (laudenzh) Ferrari (Shim), 1821) ; Colombo, Vita ed opere di (Thudenzio Ferrari (Turin, 1881) : Morelli, Italian Painters (London, 1892-93).